This present disclosure relates generally to communications between a vehicle and ground systems and, more particularly, relates to integrated power and communications interfaces.
Systems operating on-board a vehicle may generate significant amounts of data. For example, in the case of an aircraft, advanced avionics, in-flight entertainment systems, catering systems, passenger systems and other on-board systems generate and/or utilize substantial amounts of data. As just one particular example for an aircraft, significant data is generated in connection with on-board monitoring systems, such as engine monitoring systems. Engine monitoring data includes, for example, compression ratios, rotations per minute, temperature, vibration, and other engine operational data. In-flight entertainment systems also can involve significant data, e.g., terabytes of data for a suite of movies.
With some known aircraft, when the aircraft arrives at a gate, a power source is coupled to the aircraft via a power cable so that certain systems on-board the aircraft continue to function when the aircraft engines power down. Paper copies containing collected data are carried off the aircraft and delivered to the back office or forwarded to another office to be logged. Utilizing paper printouts of data creates certain challenges with respect to the physical transfer of the data from the aircraft, and subsequent analysis and processing of such data.
Rather than paper copies, and if the aircraft arrival gate is configured for electronic data download, data is downloaded from the aircraft by physically coupling an umbilical cable from a ground system to an interface on the aircraft. Such cable may be used for the dual purpose of supplying power to the aircraft on-board systems and for communications using power line communications techniques. Data is transferred via the power cable from the aircraft to the ground system.
The bandwidth for data transfer using power line communications typically is not sufficient to support all data transfer needs for the limited time an aircraft is at the gate. For example, with respect to a movie for the in-flight entertainment system, one or more movies may require a transfer of over a terabyte of data and the aircraft may only be at the gate for about twenty minutes. Rather than attempt to transfer the movie content to the in-flight entertainment system via power line communication and thereby consume most if not all the bandwidth available on the power line for transfer during the twenty minute window the aircraft is at the gate, more typically a ground crew support person manually delivers the movie to the aircraft on a storage medium (e.g., a movie prerecorded on a DVD). To make such manual transfer, the support person is scheduled to arrive at the gate at a certain time, wait for the appropriate time to board the aircraft to make the physical delivery, board the aircraft at the appropriate time, and then depart the aircraft. Coordinating the logistics for such deliveries across many different aircraft and gates can be complicated and generally time-consuming to plan and execute.
Wireless communication systems for transferring data between an aircraft and ground system also are known. With at least some such systems, when an aircraft arrives on the ground (sometimes referred to as weight on wheels, WOW), data is downloaded from a central server that resides on the aircraft to a ground system. Data may also be uploaded to such central server as well. Such communications occur, for example, using a low speed VHF based network or a wireless local area network.
Optical fibers also have been considered for use in aircraft data transfer applications. Utilizing optical fibers is attractive at least in part because such fibers have much more bandwidth as compared to at least some other known techniques. With optical fibers, however, the aircraft environment is a challenge due to potential exposure to weather as well as the environment on the ground at an aircraft gate. For example, with the activity that occurs at the gate, it is very possible that carts and other vehicles could run over the optical fibers which could damage or even break the fibers. In addition, adding a separate optical fiber connection to an aircraft generally requires significant engineering and other efforts, which can be costly. Requiring the ground crew to be trained on making an additional connection to the aircraft also requires time and investment.
Demand for additional communication channels and data transfer needs is driving rapid change in connection with such communications. Such increased demand is due, for example, to increasing reliance by ground systems upon data from the aircraft, as well as increased communication needs of the flight crew, cabin crew, and passengers. In addition, data diversity along with an increasing number of applications producing and consuming data in support of a wide range of business processes puts additional demand on communications.